Being arrested can bring a considerable amount of stress, embarrassment, and shame into your life. Not to mention that a criminal charge means that you will have to spend a lot of money on court and attorney fees.

Life happens, however. If you find yourself arrested by the police for whatever reason, don’t forget that you have rights. I hope you or your loved ones never have to deal with an arrest, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. Take a look at some tips for what you should do when you are detained by the police.

Do Not Resist

To make things easier for yourself, do not attempt to resist arrest — even if it is unlawful. If you are being arrested, stay calm. If you use force against the officer, you may add charges such as resisting arrest and battery of a police officer to your original charge. Don’t make things harder for yourself, no matter how frustrating the situation may be.

Attempting to resist could lead you to get hurt. It’s best to play it safe and stay calm to avoid any injuries.

Do Not Consent to a Search

Despite what you may believe, you have the right to say no if a police officer asks to search you or your property. In a stressful situation, it is easy to want to simply agree with all of the police’s requests — but remember, you have rights.

You are under no obligation to let the police search you or your belongings and if they do so without your consent, any of the evidence that they obtain during this search could be thrown out in court.

When declining the search, make sure to do so in a respectful manner. Saying something along the lines of “No thank you” or “I don’t consent to a search” is appropriate. Do not attempt to get in the officer’s face or make a scene — this could end up hurting you later.

Stay Silent

If you are arrested by the police, it is likely they will read you your Miranda rights, telling you that you have the right to remain silent. Invoke that right and do not say anything to the police — except under certain conditions.

When being booked into jail, answer any biographical questions they may ask, such as your name or your height and weight. Do not speak to any police officers about the case or your arrest — ask to make a phone call and to get in contact with an attorney. You are not an attorney — do not attempt to prove your innocence. Let your lawyer handle that job.

Speaking of attorneys, it is imperative that you contact one. Attorneys like Ian Inglis Attorney at Law are experts on criminal charges and know the best possible legal strategies to get your case dismissed or your sentence reduced. Plus, your attorney will be able to advise you on when and when not to speak to the authorities.

Unfortunately, the United States is a country in which people love to litigate or use legal action to achieve certain goals. Sometimes those goals can be admirable, such as when a person is injured as a result of a person or company’s poor decisions. However, as we all know, some lawsuits are frivolous, pointless, or boring. While I am not a lawyer, I simply cannot conceptualize ever being interested in copyright, patents, or some other form of litigation!

Most lawsuits are for valid reasons, especially when filed by average people — not large, powerful companies dealing with more complex matters. While most people associate legal action with unfortunate events such as car accidents or theft, there is one type of lawsuit that has been really interesting for me to research lately.

“Premises liability” is the legal concept I wanted to discuss. In this article, I will talk about this responsibility of businesses, how it relates to injuries, and what to do if you want to pursue a legal case involving premises liability.

Definition

Premises liability concerns legal cases wherein someone was injured on a property due to negligence on the part of the actor responsible for maintaining a safe property. One of the most famous examples of premises liability is when there is a wet floor by which someone could slip and drastically injure themselves, but there is no warning sign of the wet floor. In this case, under premises liability, a person could sue the owners or managers of the store containing the wet floor as failing to uphold their responsibility to people coming into the store.

There is one important distinction to make, however. Premises liability can only be extended in situations in which the visitor to the property is legally allowed onto the site of the premises. In the wide world of criminal history, you can bet there have been cases of thieves or burglars breaking into a building and getting injured while present on the site. In this situation, the owner of the property would almost never be held liable for the injuries of the trespasser or would-be criminal.

Injuries

But what exactly are the injuries covered by premises liability cases? Well, the possibilities are endless due to the fact that premises liability situations are not limited to any specific type of injury; any pain or condition caused by poor management or improper warning of environmental hazards can lead to premises liability claims.

However, certain injuries are predominant when it comes to premises liability cases; head trauma or neck injuries stemming from painful slip-and-fall situations are unfortunately common. Alongside these injuries are broken bones, cuts, lacerations, and other painful but usually non-fatal injuries.

If you think that a situation in which you were injured might count as a premises liability case, it is in your best interest to contact a lawyer as soon as possible. As the Jurewitz Law Group explains, the longer you wait, the harder it is to prove the environmental conditions that could have led to your injuries.

I’ve always wondered how some lawyers can say that they don’t get paid unless their clients get money for their case. That’s known as a contingency fee, and it turns out that personal injury lawyers work on contingency fees almost exclusively. I was reading about how these contingency fees work on the Law Offices of Seaton & Bates, PLLC website. They work on contingency in a number of different practice areas, including car wrecks, slip and falls, and medical malpractice. But these are all civil cases. That means no criminal charges are being pursued. The parties are merely trying to recoup money from damages done. Lawyers don’t work on contingency when they do criminal cases because there will not be a money settlement to deal with. In those cases, the lawyers will charge by the hour. If you find yourself in a civil case, there are a lot of benefits to hiring a lawyer on contingency.

When lawyers work on contingency, they are unable to charge clients more money based on the time it takes to complete the case. So, if a case becomes very complicated and ends up dragging out for several months, you won’t be affected by this at all. In a criminal case, a more complicated case means you’re paying for more hours that your attorney puts in. In a civil, contingency-based case, your attorney will still collect the agreed upon portion of the settlement.

Another great benefit of contingency fees is that clients cannot lose money. Attorneys never charge money out of pocket, as their payment is going to be a percentage of the settlement that they produce. If your attorney ends up not being able to get a settlement, then he’s lost out on the time he put into it. If your lawyer ends up getting a settlement that is very small and doesn’t cover court fees, you won’t have to pay for money lost.

We all know someone that has in some way been affected by divorce. Going through a divorce can be one of the most emotional experiences in an individual’s life. When children are involved, the emotional stakes are even higher.

Because of my interests in family dynamics, including the separation of families, I decided to do a little research on child support agreements. My research was extensive and thorough, and Alexander & Associates wrote the best article I came across. The article gave an easy-to-understand explanation of these complicated agreements.

According to the article, the goal of a child support agreement is to find what is in the best interest of the child and to make sure the child is receiving proper care. The problem is that the spouses may have different ideas about what is in their child’s best interest. This leads to emotionally charged disputes that can cause severe stress to all parties involved.

The idea behind child support is to ensure that parents are fulfilling their parental duties to their child or children. These duties include the provision of financial, emotional, educational, and medical support. The periodic payments of child support are designed to ensure that the child receives proper care. Even after child support agreements are reached, down the road, the arrangements can be modified or enforced.

In Texas, child support agreements are enforced by the Attorney General Child Support Division. The mission statement of the Division reads as follows:

“The Attorney General’s Child Support Division has a responsibility to assist parents in obtaining the financial support necessary for children to grow up and succeed in life. To encourage parental responsibility, the Attorney General establishes paternity of children, establishes court orders for financial and medical support and vigorously enforces support orders. The Attorney General promotes the emotional involvement of both parents in the life of the child by working with community groups, schools, and hospitals. Attorney General employees will efficiently perform their duties to minimize taxpayer expense and in a friendly fashion to maximize customer satisfaction.”

Basically, through this mission statement, the Attorney General Child Support Division will handle most issues that come with a child support agreement. Parents can rest assured that their information given to the Division will be kept confidential and that they will obtain proper and professional service.

The Division’s primary responsibilities include: locating absentee parents, establishing paternity, establishing, enforcing and modifying child and medical support orders and, collecting and distributing child support monies. Though child support agreements are often complicated and emotional charged, it is important to keep in mind that everything will be okay and that help is there. If you are going through a divorce and dealing with child support, keep these words in mind. If you know someone going through a tough divorce, pass these words their way. With the right child support lawyer and a mindset of always looking forward and never backward, anyone can get through these rough times.

One man was killed and five others were transported to the hospital with injuries following a collision with a car and a Louisville Fire & Rescue truck on Thursday. The collision was reported around 8:45 a.m. on the Algonquin Parkway (near McCloskey Ave.). Authorities and news station WDRB report that the fire truck was responding to an emergency call and had its lights and sirens on at the time of the collision. The truck collided with the vehicle, a Mercury, driven by 61-year old Larry Carter, who was unfortunately killed in the crash. Authorities

Local authorities, including Metro Police spokesperson Dwight Mitchell said that there was a stop sign at the scene, and the fire truck had the right-of-way, especially since it was an emergency situation. After colliding with the car, the fire truck ran off the roadway (leaving noticeable skid-marks on the road, hours after the crash) and hit a brick sign and a tree before coming to rest.

A female passenger in the car was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, and all four crew members on the fire truck were also taken to the hospital for evaluation for minor injuries caused in the crash. It is always devastating for family members of injured or deceased individuals to have to deal with the loss of a loved one, and is even more troubling when the accident occurs with an emergency vehicle.

While the spokespeople for the department believe that the fire truck had the right-of-way and the collision may have been the fault of the driver of the car, there are still legal issues that inevitably must be settled following any serious accident. Does the family need to hire a lawyer in Louisville? Does the accident need to be investigated further to determine who is at fault?

In some cases, people may say the answer to these questions is yes. The family may be entitled to pursue a personal injury lawsuit against the city for the crash that killed their loved one. They may be entitled to compensation for the loss of companionship, funeral expenses, and other losses caused by the tragic collision.

Ultimately, it is the family’s decision of how they want to handle the aftermath of the accident and whether they want to pursue legal action against the city for the death of their loved one, or whether they wish to simply let the issue go. Only the family can decide what action (if any) they wish to take, and they will ultimately have to deal with the issues that follow a tragic accident like this one.

Sleep apnea is a sleeping disorder wherein a person continuously pauses in breathing during sleep. This happens because of two things. One, there is something wrong with the respiratory path, like when the throat muscles are overly relaxed during sleep. Two, the brain doesn’t properly send signals to the body parts that control breathing.

Having breathing problems in sleep may make the person wake up from time to time, which means that he or she may experience sleep deprivation and its associated effects, such as anxiety, increased irritability, and poor mental functions. But according to the website of Silent Night Therapy, untreated sleep apnea can also lead to certain medical complications, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and cardiovascular problems.

But how does a person know if he or she has sleep apnea? The follow symptoms may surface:

Abruptly waking up because of shortness of breath

Episodes of breathing hardships during sleep, especially upon the witness of another person

Overly loud snores, especially those that are loud enough to potentially disturb sleep

Sleepiness during daytime, which can be excessive enough to make the person fall asleep anytime anywhere

Waking up with a dry mouth or sore throat

However, take note that some of these symptoms do not necessarily translate into sleep apnea. For example, excessive sleepiness during the day may just mean that the person lacks sleep in the prior night, or that he or she has a different sleeping disorder, such as narcolepsy.

What clearly defines sleep apnea is the breathing problem during sleep, especially if the problem wakes the person up from time to time or disturbs the sleep of another person near the patient that has sleep apnea, like his or her spouse that has been sleeping beside him or her.

Still, the best way to know if a person has sleep apnea is consulting a medical professional. After all, this sleeping disorder is serious enough to warrant a visit to the doctor, because of the possible consequences it has for its sufferers.

The Dangers of Reckless Driving

When you look at the news, it is not uncommon to see wrecked vehicles because of drunk, speeding, or reckless drivers. These accidents often result into serious injury or even death. The worst part of these accidents is the fact that most of the drivers involved did the reckless behaviors intentionally.

They drive drunk because there was nobody else available to drive. They speed because they want to save time. They become reckless on the road just for the thrill of it. But it is a different story if another motorist has been hurt because of their behaviors. But according to the website of this Fort Worth injury attorney, those who have been hurt in such accidents may get compensation.

But why are these behaviors dangerous, exactly? Drunk driving is dangerous because alcohol can have negative effects on the driver, both physically and mentally. Physically, the driver may feel sleepy, fatigued, and not be able to control the vehicle properly. Mentally, he or she may not properly comprehend road lights and signs and judge the positioning of other motorists.

In the case of speeding, drivers will have limited visibility because of how fast they are going. They may miss traffic lights, warning signs, and even pedestrians that are crossing the street. Since they are traveling too fast, they will also have very limited time to react when something unexpected occurs. Even if they react on time, they will not be sure if the vehicle will cooperate, because a speeding vehicle is much harder to control.

The issues with reckless driving behaviors such as tailgating and weaving involve reaction time and positioning. If drivers are tailgating or if they are anywhere too near other vehicles, they are giving themselves limited time to react when those vehicles suddenly stop, brake, or turn. Weaving drivers may also get involved in accidents, particularly head-on collisions, rear-end collisions, and sideswipes, due to their constant changing of position.

It is a good thing that most of these behaviors are against the law, because jurisdictions clearly know the dangers they may bring, not just to the reckless drivers, but also to the others around them.

Mechanical malfunctions, recklessness and negligence of drivers, and driver error are some of the common causes of traffic accidents. But what if the manufacturers and sellers already provide adequate safety measures and the drivers are already diligent? Is it possible that a traffic accident can still occur? Yes. Defects in the road itself can be a cause of a car crash, and your first line of defense is knowledge of what kind of defects a road can have that can potentially trigger an accident.

Construction issues

Roads that are proven to go against the approved construction plans can be considered defective, especially if they cause certain inconveniences. An example of which is the use of substandard materials, which can shorten the effectiveness of the roads even though they are being maintained.

Design issues

If a road has unnecessarily dangerous curves, slopes, and dips, it may be said that it has a defective design. Defective design can also include limited visibility because of obstructions and hazards, improper drainage that may cause ponding in the road, and inadequate skid resistance in the pavement.

Maintenance issues

Cities, counties, and state governments have the responsibility of road maintenance to make sure that the roads are in their top condition. This helps prevent accidents. If the responsible party fails to maintain its roads, it may be held liable.

Signs of poor maintenance include the presence of potholes, cracks, cave-ins, and paint marks that look eroded or have low visibility.
Road defects do not just concern the road itself. There are other factors around the road that complete the effectiveness of the roads. If these factors are defective or missing, an accident can occur. Some of these factors include the following:

Clearly marked intersections and crosswalks

Installed barriers and guardrails

Safe conditions around road construction zones

Visible road signs and warning signs

Working traffic control devices

Preventing car accidents is not just about driving safely, because after all, there are also external factors that may trigger accidents. They may be other drivers who are reckless, manufacturers and sellers who are neglectful, and roads that have construction, design, or maintenance issues. In order to prevent them, the least you can do is to read about them.

Without a doubt, losing a loved one is among the most difficult experiences any person could go through. The pain of going through a loved one’s death can only be magnified for wrongful death cases. Families that lose their loved ones in accidents caused by another person’s negligent actions go through an arduous grieving process. Knowing that a loved one’s death could have been prevented can make closure feel like an elusive and foreign concept—something that couldn’t possibly happen in the near future.

Thankfully, the law provides families in these situations several options to pursue. Among these options include filing a personal injury lawsuit against the negligent parties involved in the wrongful death case. Wrongful death lawsuits can be made against any party or individual whose negligent behavior caused the fatal accident to occur. According to Tuscon personal injury lawyers at Russo, Russo, and Slania, the most common causes of wrongful death include car and truck accidents, motorcycle accidents, premises and product liability, medical malpractice, and nursing home negligence. Wrongful death can also occur due to workplace accidents caused by harsh operational conditions and the lack of proper safety protocols.

When filing a personal injury lawsuit involving wrongful death cases, the law is clear on how long legal action can be pursued and who the suit will benefit once it is resolved. Wrongful death claims can only be made by those referred to as the “real parties in interest.” While the definition of the term might differ slightly from state to state, it generally refers to the immediate family of the victim. This includes the victim’s financial dependents, spouse or life partner, and, in some cases, the parents. For the parties in interest, the law provides a timeline which determines how long a lawsuit can be pursued. This is called the statute of limitations, and wrongful death lawsuits should be filed within this limited window of opportunity.

Accidents are quite common in construction sites. From slip and fall, electrocution, falling debris, serious accidents happen regularly in these places. According to the website of Karlin, Fleisher & Falkenberg, such risks can be prevented with proper safety regulations. When working in construction sites, utmost vigilance is a necessity for your own good. Here are some of the most common construction site accidents and their prevention.

Scaffolding Injuries or Deaths

Working hundreds of meters above the ground is already a risk in itself. Scaffolding falls account for over 30 percent of injuries and fatalities in construction sites. Thus, these structures should be properly maintained and checked for its structural design. The number of personnel using the equipment should also be limited. There should also be safety nets in case someone falls from the elevator from the upper level.

Electrocution

Exposed electrical wires are also a common sight in construction areas putting workers and passersby at risk of getting electrocuted. To avoid electrocution, ensure that all wires are properly labeled and moved away from high traffic areas. In addition, construction workers should also be aware of where the power lines are.

Elevator Shafts

Elevator shafts move construction workers from one floor to another. The risk it poses is that workers could fall down the shafts and there is also the danger of the shaft collapsing. To remedy possible falls, elevator shafts should be properly maintained and elevator operation training must be conducted.

Falling Debris

This is where construction hard hats will come in handy. Debris are likely to fall or tools accidentally kicked and fall on the head of workers below exposing them to fatal head injuries or serious head trauma. Those working on upper levels should secure equipment during and after use.

Equipment Accidents

Lives and limbs can be easily lost from improper operation of heavy duty machinery and equipment. Crane operators need to undergo intensive training and extreme focus. The same is true with those working on high speed and sharp motorized equipment.

Fatigue/Human Factors

Working with an empty stomach, tired, exhausted, and other human factors can also contribute to injuries and casualties in the construction site. So ensure that you have enough rest and sleep before working.
Safety in the construction site can help reduce the number of injuries and casualties among workers.